I Was Once a Whale

I was gigantic,

My gentle mass dividing those around me as I drifted, softly, slowly through the expanse.

My wide eyes, never intending to harm, my haunting voice, never raised in anger.

But it wasn’t my song that they were after.

They chased me for the value I had, harpooning me with sharp jabs, gutting me and taking what the perceived as valuable, no matter what the cost was to myself.

When I cried out in pain, shaking away my tormentors, I was labeled monstrous.

My body scarred,

My voice broken,

My soul shattered.

There were those, that saw under my pain, who fought for me, alongside me. Until I had almost repaired my fractured self,

But still sometimes the shadow of those events will pass over my mind and I feel like I am no more than the scarred calf, having no idea how much more the world will hold.

I remember who I was before the hunters came

I was gigantic, I was kind, I was serene.

I would give anything to go back.